We, the MuslimOfAmerica team were all born Muslims but this is a really funny convert story you should definitely listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_90nZ4PnQ]]>
Thu, 09 Jul 2015 05:15:29 +0000http://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27744&PID=198034#198034Stories - How I Became Muslim? : Funny Convert Story of a Former Christianhttp://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=34052&PID=198032#198032
Author: MuslimOfAmericaSubject: Funny Convert Story of a Former ChristianPosted: 09 July 2015 at 5:06am

This is a funny story of Yosua Evan's journey to Islam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW_90nZ4PnQ]]>
Thu, 09 Jul 2015 05:06:27 +0000http://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=34052&PID=198032#198032Stories - How I Became Muslim? : How I Came to Love the Veilhttp://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27730&PID=197829#197829
Author: zliyaSubject: How I Came to Love the VeilPosted: 27 June 2015 at 7:31pm

I honestly teared up reading this. Alhamdulillah.]]>
Sat, 27 Jun 2015 19:31:35 +0000http://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27730&PID=197829#197829Stories - How I Became Muslim? : A story of a hindu Brahmin into folds of Islamhttp://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12675&PID=196954#196954
Author: JanjaweedSubject: A story of a hindu Brahmin into folds of IslamPosted: 09 May 2015 at 4:45pm

great story]]>
Sat, 09 May 2015 16:45:13 +0000http://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12675&PID=196954#196954Stories - How I Became Muslim? : I need helphttp://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=30051&PID=196482#196482
Author: imranaliSubject: I need helpPosted: 18 April 2015 at 12:57pm

Islam give you the message honesty humble and polite with your older and younger. You should attached with them and learn basic of Islam after sometime you will convince them and they will move to Islam.]]>
Sat, 18 Apr 2015 12:57:55 +0000http://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=30051&PID=196482#196482Stories - How I Became Muslim? : Why I converted to Islamhttp://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=33317&PID=196127#196127
Author: icforumadminSubject: Why I converted to IslamPosted: 29 March 2015 at 11:02pm

The transition from Lew to Kareem was not merely a change in celebrity brand name — like Sean Combs to Puff Daddy to Diddy to P. Diddy — but a transformation of heart, mind and soul. I used to be Lew Alcindor, the pale reflection of what white America expected of me. Now I’m Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the manifestation of my African history, culture and beliefs.

For most people, converting from one religion to another is a private matter requiring intense scrutiny of one’s conscience. But when you’re famous, it becomes a public spectacle for one and all to debate. And when you convert to an unfamiliar or unpopular religion, it invites criticism of one’s intelligence, patriotism and sanity. I should know. Even though I became a Muslim more than 40 years ago, I’m still defending that choice.

Unease with celebrity

I was introduced to Islam while I was a freshman at UCLA. Although I had already achieved a certain degree of national fame as a basketball player, I tried hard to keep my personal life private. Celebrity made me nervous and uncomfortable. I was still young, so I couldn’t really articulate why I felt so shy of the spotlight. Over the next few years, I started to understand it better.

Part of my restraint was the feeling that the person the public was celebrating wasn’t the real me. Not only did I have the usual teenage angst of becoming a man, but I was also playing for one of the best college basketball teams in the country and trying to maintain my studies. Add to that the weight of being black in America in 1966 and ’67, when James Meredith was ambushed while marching through Mississippi, the Black Panther Party was founded, Thurgood Marshall was appointed as the first African-American Supreme Court Justice and a race riot in Detroit left 43 dead, 1,189 injured and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed.

I came to realize that the Lew Alcindor everyone was cheering wasn’t really the person they imagined. They wanted me to be the clean-cut example of racial equality. The poster boy for how anybody from any background — regardless of race, religion or economic standing — could achieve the American dream. To them, I was the living proof that racism was a myth.

I knew better. Being 7-foot-2 and athletic got me there, not a level playing field of equal opportunity. But I was also fighting a strict upbringing of trying to please those in authority. My father was a cop with a set of rules, I attended a Catholic school with priests and nuns with more rules, and I played basketball for coaches who had even more rules. Rebellion was not an option.

Still, I was discontented. Growing up in the 1960s, I wasn’t exposed to many black role models. I admired Martin Luther King Jr. for his selfless courage and Shaft for kicking ass and getting the girl. Otherwise, the white public’s consensus seemed to be that blacks weren’t much good. They were either needy downtrodden folks who required white people’s help to get the rights they were due or radical troublemakers wanting to take away white homes and jobs and daughters. The “good ones” were happy entertainers, either in show business or sports, who were expected to show gratitude for their good fortune. I knew this reality was somehow wrong — that something had to change. I just didn’t know what it meant for me.

“Some fans took my decision very personally, as if I had firebombed their church while tearing up an American flag.”

Much of my early awakening came from reading “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” as a freshman. I was riveted by Malcolm’s story of how he came to realize that he was the victim of institutional racism that had imprisoned him long before he landed in an actual prison. That’s exactly how I felt: imprisoned by an image of who I was supposed to be. The first thing he did was push aside the Baptist religion that his parents had brought him up in and study Islam. To him, Christianity was a foundation of the white culture responsible for enslaving blacks and supporting the racism that permeated society. His family was attacked by the Christianity-spouting Ku Klux Klan, and his home was burned by the KKK splinter group the Black Legion.

Malcolm X’s transformation from petty criminal to political leader inspired me to look more closely at my upbringing and forced me to think more deeply about my identity. Islam helped him find his true self and gave him the strength not only to face hostility from both blacks and whites but also to fight for social justice. I began to study the Quran.

Conviction and defiance

This decision set me on an irreversible course to spiritual fulfillment. But it definitely wasn’t a smooth course. I made serious mistakes along the way. Then again, maybe the path isn’t supposed to be smooth; maybe it’s supposed to be filled with obstacles and detours and false discoveries in order to challenge and hone one’s beliefs. As Malcolm X said, “I guess a man’s entitled to make a fool of himself if he’s ready to pay the cost.”

I paid the cost.

As I said earlier, I was brought up to respect rules — and especially those who enforced the rules, such as teachers, preachers and coaches. I’d always been an exceptional student, so when I wanted to know more about Islam, I found a teacher in Hammas Abdul-Khaalis. During my years playing with the Milwaukee Bucks, Hammas’ version of Islam was a joyous revelation. Then in 1971, when I was 24, I converted to Islam and became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (meaning “the noble one, servant of the Almighty”).

The question I’m often asked is why I had to pick a religion so foreign to American culture and a name that was hard for people to pronounce. Some fans took it very personally, as if I had firebombed their church while tearing up an American flag. Actually, I was rejecting the religion that was foreign to my American culture and embracing one that was part of my black African heritage. (An estimated 15 to 30 percent of slaves brought from Africa were Muslims.) Fans thought I joined the Nation of Islam, an American Islamic movement founded in Detroit in 1930. Although I was greatly influenced by Malcolm X, a leader in the Nation of Islam, I chose not to join because I wanted to focus more on the spiritual rather than political aspects. Eventually, Malcolm rejected the group right before three of its members assassinated him.

My parents were not pleased by my conversion. Though they weren’t strict Catholics, they had raised me to believe in Christianity as the gospel. But the more I studied history, the more disillusioned I became with the role of Christianity in subjugating my people. I knew, of course, that the Second Vatican Council in 1965 declared slavery an “infamy” that dishonored God and was a poison to society. But for me, it was too little, too late. The failure of the church to use its might and influence to stop slavery and instead to justify it as somehow connected to original sin made me angry. Papal bulls (e.g., “Dum Diversas” and “Romanus Pontifex”) condoned enslaving native people and stealing their lands.

“Conversion is a risky business because it can result in losing family, friends and community support.”

And while I realize that many Christians risked their lives and families to fight slavery and that it would not have been ended without them, I found it hard to align myself with the cultural institutions that had turned a blind eye to such outrageous behavior in direct violation of their most sacred beliefs.

The adoption of a new name was an extension of my rejection of all things in my life that related to the enslavement of my family and people. Alcindor was a French planter in the West Indies who owned my ancestors. My forebears were Yoruba people, from present day Nigeria. Keeping the name of my family’s slave master seemed somehow to dishonor them. His name felt like a branded scar of shame.

My devotion to Islam was absolute. I even agreed to marry a woman whom Hammas suggested for me, despite my strong feelings for another woman. Ever the team player, I did as “Coach” Hammas recommended. I also followed his advice not to invite my parents to the wedding — a mistake that took me more than a decade to rectify. Although I had my doubts about some of Hammas’ instruction, I rationalized them away because of the great spiritual fulfillment I was experiencing.

But my independent spirit finally emerged. Not content to receive all my religious knowledge from one man, I pursued my own studies. I soon found that I disagreed with some of Hammas’ teachings about the Quran, and we parted ways. In 1973, I traveled to Libya and Saudi Arabia to learn enough Arabic to study the Quran on my own. I emerged from this pilgrimage with my beliefs clarified and my faith renewed.

From that year to this, I have never wavered or regretted my decision to convert to Islam. When I look back, I wish I could have done it in a more private way, without all the publicity and fuss that followed. But at the time I was adding my voice to the civil rights movement by denouncing the legacy of slavery and the religious institutions that had supported it. That made it more political than I had intended and distracted from what was, for me, a much more personal journey.

Many people are born into their religion. For them it is mostly a matter of legacy and convenience. Their belief is based on faith, not just in the teachings of the religion but also in the acceptance of that religion from their family and culture. For the person who converts, it is a matter of fierce conviction and defiance. Our belief is based on a combination of faith and logic because we need a powerful reason to abandon the traditions of our families and community to embrace beliefs foreign to both. Conversion is a risky business because it can result in losing family, friends and community support.

Some fans still call me Lew, then seem annoyed when I ignore them. They don’t understand that their lack of respect for my spiritual choice is insulting. It’s as if they see me as a toy action figure, existing solely to decorate their world as they see fit, rather than as an individual with his own life.

Kermit the Frog famously complained, “It’s not easy being green.” Try being Muslim in America. According to a Pew Research Center poll on attitudes about major religious groups, the U.S. public has the least regard for Muslims — slightly less than it has for atheists — even though Islam is the third-largest faith in America. The acts of aggression, terrorism and inhumanity committed by those claiming to be Muslims have made the rest of the world afraid of us. Without really knowing the peaceful practices of most of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, they see only the worst examples. Part of my conversion to Islam is accepting the responsibility to teach others about my religion, not to convert them but to co-exist with them through mutual respect, support and peace. One world does not have to mean one religion, just one belief in living in peace.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the National Basketball Association’s all-time leading scorer. During his 20 seasons in the league, he won six championships and six Most Valuable Player awards.

Edited by icforumadmin - 29 March 2015 at 11:04pm]]>
Sun, 29 Mar 2015 23:02:32 +0000http://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=33317&PID=196127#196127Stories - How I Became Muslim? : How I Came to Love the Veilhttp://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27730&PID=195634#195634
Author: abuayishaSubject: How I Came to Love the VeilPosted: 03 March 2015 at 12:42pm

Originally posted by Ron Webb

There is no way that copying an entire article from a commercial source onto a public discussion board can be construed as passing the "fair use" test.

The test of "fair use" is a matter for the court to decide, should an author wish to file a (frivolous) lawsuit for posting on a discussion forum. ]]>
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 12:42:03 +0000http://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27730&PID=195634#195634Stories - How I Became Muslim? : How I Came to Love the Veilhttp://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27730&PID=195630#195630
Author: Ron WebbSubject: How I Came to Love the VeilPosted: 03 March 2015 at 10:07am

There is no way that copying an entire article from a commercial source onto a public discussion board can be construed as passing the "fair use" test. It would be sufficient for the purpose of discussion to summarize the article and/or quote just a couple of paragraphs, followed by a link to the article on the Washington Post's site for those who want to read the full text. Quoting the entire article therefore fails point 3; and failing to provide a link violates point 4, in that it deprives the copyright owner of revenue (i.e., advertising revenue from his own Web site).

L.A. Times v. Free Republic is a 1998 United States district court copyright law case. Several newspapers sued the Internet forum Free Republic for allowing its users to repost the full text of copyrighted newspaper articles, asserting that this constituted copyright infringement. Free Republic claimed that they were not liable under the doctrine of fair use and the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech. The federal courts ruled in favor of the newspapers.

It's worth noting that one of the litigants in the above case was the Washington Post, who also happen to be the copyright owners for the article in question.]]>
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 10:07:49 +0000http://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27730&PID=195630#195630Stories - How I Became Muslim? : How I Came to Love the Veilhttp://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27730&PID=195610#195610
Author: abuayishaSubject: How I Came to Love the VeilPosted: 02 March 2015 at 7:12am

"Fair Use"

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include - (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.]]>
Mon, 02 Mar 2015 07:12:36 +0000http://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27730&PID=195610#195610Stories - How I Became Muslim? : How I Came to Love the Veilhttp://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27730&PID=195599#195599
Author: Ron WebbSubject: How I Came to Love the VeilPosted: 01 March 2015 at 1:03pm

Sorry, but I have to say this:

Originally posted by yuniisan

May i repost ur story pls :)

It's not Nazeerjw's story. You should be asking Yvonne Ridley and/or the Washington Post for permission. The story is protected by copyright and should never have been posted on this site to begin with.

Posting small excerpts of copyrighted material is generally regarded as "fair use" for educational and discussion purposes, but even in that case attribution (e.g., a link to the original source) should be provided. Reproducing virtually the entire article is flat-out illegal, as well as being disrespectful to the original author. Yes, I know it is commonly done on discussion forums, but it is still wrong.]]>
Sun, 01 Mar 2015 13:03:57 +0000http://www.IslamiCity.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=27730&PID=195599#195599